Robert Sklar, a film scholar whose 1975 book “Movie-Made America” was one of the first histories to place Hollywood films in a social and political context, finding them a key to understanding how modern American values and beliefs have been shaped, died on Saturday in Barcelona. He was 74.

The cause was a brain injury sustained in a bicycle accident, his son Leonard said.

Mr. Sklar, who was a professor of cinema studies at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts for more than 30 years, came to film in the 1960s, when he was asked to serve as a faculty adviser to the Cinema Guild, the student film society at the University of Michigan, where he taught in the American culture program.

He found the proposal enticing. After publishing a cultural study of F. Scott Fitzgerald, he had begun focusing on Hollywood film as a lens for analyzing American society in the 1920s and 1930s.

When he could not find a satisfactory history of American film, he decided to fill the gap himself and wrote “Movie-Made America: A History of American Movies.” It immediately became a standard work on the subject and has never been out of print. In 1994 it was reissued in a revised and expanded version.

To celebrate International Zine Month, our rich collection of graphic novels & comics at UCSD and the wonder that is Comic-con, the Arts Library and Grrrl Zines-a-go-go present a summer exhibit at the UCSD Arts Library: Comics & Zines! (Exhibit runs July 6 through August 6)

Plus make your own zine at the exhibit site on Thursday, July 28 at 2:00 p.m. with the artists from Grrrl Zines A Go-Go, participants at the workshop will have the opportunity to construct, collage, and create their own zine! But what exactly is a zine you ask?

We’re celebrating the colorful, tactile world of comics with a month-long exhibit here at the UCSD Arts Library.
Yes, some of us still spend time in a page-turning world of paper, ink & imagery.

Exhibit is ever-changing throughout the month of July and early August, visit often!
You’ll see items from the UCSD Libraries that celebrate comics and call attention to more recent developments in the world of zines, plus some classic zines from the good old days.

Leonora Carrington, a British-born Surrealist and onetime romantic partner of Max Ernst whose paintings depicted women and half-human beasts floating in a dreamscape of images drawn from myth, folklore, religious ritual and the occult, died on Wednesday in Mexico City, where she lived. She was 94.

“The Inn of the Dawn Horse (Self-Portrait),” oil on canvas, 1939, Ms. Carrington’s first major Surrealist work. The painting is now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

A sculpture from a recent exhibition of Leonora Carrigton’s work at the Estación Indianilla Cultural Center in Mexico City.

The cause was pneumonia, Wendi Norris, the co-owner of Frey Norris Contemporary and Modern gallery in San Francisco, said.

Ms. Carrington, one of the last living links to the world of André Breton, Man Ray and Miró, was an art student when she encountered Ernst’s work for the first time at the International Surrealism Exhibition in London in 1936. A year later she met him at a party.

The two fell in love and ran off to Paris, where Ernst, more than 25 years her senior, left his wife and introduced Ms. Carrington to the Surrealist circle. “From Max I had my education,” she told The Guardian of London in 2007. “I learned about art and literature. He taught me everything.”

She became acquainted with the likes of Picasso, Dalí and Tanguy. With her striking looks and adventurous spirit, she seemed like the ideal muse, but the role did not suit. Miró once handed her a few coins and told her to run out and buy him a pack of cigarettes. “I gave it back and said if he wanted cigarettes, he could bloody well get them himself,” she told The Guardian. “I wasn’t daunted by any of them.”

The UCSD Libraries are pleased to collaborate with Professor Roger Reynolds and MFA student Ross Karre for sound and image restoration services for Reynold’s Ping. Some of these digitized materials will be used for a performance of Ping on Friday, May 27th, 2011, 8:00 pm, at the Conrad Prebys Music Center Recital Hall (free!) The performers are Rachel Beetz (flute), Paul Hembree (live electronics), Ross Karre (percussion and video), and Roger Reynolds (piano). The concert will include a screening of “Ping Migration,” a documentary short by Ross Karre.

The Arts Library is also hosting a “Ping Migration” exhibit through June 10th, presenting images and artifacts related to Ping’s creation and UCSD premiere in 1968, while using an audio/visual component to contrast them to the new performance technologies.

The Ping digitization project involves excerpts and creative materials such as compositional sketches and diagrams, as well as interviews with Reynolds and photographs from both the 1968 and 2011 UCSD performances. These digitized images will be part of the Libraries’ collection and made available to the public online.

“Tales from the Mothership: The Geisel Library, Past, Present, and Future” and an experimental Sci-Fi Film “Laboratory” are two of the age-defying events being held by the UC San Diego Libraries on May 11 to celebrate the 40th birthday of the Geisel Library building, known by many as the campus spaceship.

The event, which is being sponsored by the Mandeville Special Collections Library, will be preceded by an experimental sci-fi musical performance by musician and sound wizard Scott Paulson of the UCSD Arts Library, starting at 4 p.m. Guests will also enjoy a birthday cake and refreshments!

Presented by Seth Lerer, Dean of UCSD’s Division of Arts & Humanities, at 5 p.m. in the Seuss Room in Geisel Library. Lerer, one of the nation’s leading literature scholars, is an authority on Dr. Seuss and popular culture, and played a leadership role in the successful “UCSD by Design: Art, Architecture, and Urbanism in the Campus Context,” which featured a series of noted speakers on architecture and design and celebrated UCSD’s built environment, including the campus’ flagship building, Geisel Library.

The Sci-Fi Film Laboratory, which will be held from 4 to 4:45 p.m., will feature classic and not-so-classic science fiction film mash-ups with live music. Visitors will also have the opportunity to conduct their own sonic experiments, underscoring the films with a variety of Moog synthesizers, Theremins, and various other unusual instruments, and make their own mash-ups by choosing sounds to enhance the live screenings.

But Wait! There’s More!

And then join us on May 21st from 11 am to 5 pm for an impromptu Sci-Fi Radio & Film Laboratory – conduct your own experiments with a variety of Moog synthesizers, Theremins, and many more unusual instruments! Fun!

As some classic and not-so-classic science fiction films roll in our high-definition viewing rooms, you can choose your own sounds to overscore and enhance the live screenings. In a neighboring room, review sci-fi radio drama scripts, and create your own other-worldly score with our sound effects tools.

That’s Saturday, May 21 from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m, and parking is FREE!

If you’ve listened to the Union-Tribune’s “Science and Defense” podcast, or “Science Talk,” you know that co-hosts Gary Robbins and Scott Paulson are a couple of baby boomers who like old-time radio. (They especially love X Minus One.) During a recent podcast, Robbins and Paulson began spitballing ideas for a script they intend to write for a 10-minute sci-fi radio drama. The story, to be produced at wsRadio.com will be set in the 1930s and involves a man and his son (or daughter) who hear an odd noise emanating from an exhibit while they’re leaving a museum in Balboa Park at the end of the day. Robbins and Paulson urge readers to suggest names for the characters — and for a villain. They also want readers to suggest ideas for the plot!

Did animation pioneer Shamus Culhane secretly slip his own abstract paintings into 1940s Woody Woodpecker cartoons? Apparently so, according to cartoon historian Tom Klein writing in the new issue of Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal.

The UC San Diego Arts Library will hold an exhibit featuring the work of San Diego-based writer-illustrator Geoff Relf and his soon to be published book, “Blue Planet Blues by Gordon the Giant Clam with ESP.”

The exhibit, which pays homage to Earth Day (April 22), will be held in the Geisel Library building on the lower level of the West wing from April 4 through May 31.

The exhibit is centered on the fanciful characters and environmental messages of the book, featuring Relf’s colorful illustrations and rhyming and narrative-style text. For those interested in the book publishing process, the exhibit shows how the book is prepared for traditional color printing, as well as for electronic delivery as an e-book for viewing on computers and other electronic devices.